Once inside, Penny wandered backstage in search of her father or Jerry. The program had started, but after listening a moment to a singer, she moved out of range of his voice.
Now and then, from the audience of newspapermen out front, came an occasional ripple of laughter or clapping of hands as they applauded a speaker.
“Sounds pretty dull,” thought Penny. “Guess it’s lucky Dad cooked up the shooting stunt. If everything goes off right, it should liven things up a bit.”
Wandering on down a hall, she came to one of the dressing rooms. Stacked against the outside wall were hundreds of freshly printed newspapers ready for distribution.
Penny flipped one from the pile and read the headline: “REPORTER SHOT IN ARGUMENT WITH ELECTRICIAN!”
Beneath the banner followed a story of the staged stunt to take place. So convincingly was it written, Penny had to think twice to realize not a word was true. Other columns of the paper contained regular wire news stories and telephoto pictures. Much of the front page also was given over to an account of the convention itself.
“This will make a nice souvenir edition,” Penny thought. “Wonder where Jerry is? The stunt will be ruined if he doesn’t get here.”
Salt came down the corridor, loaded heavily with his camera, a tripod, a reflector, and other photographic equipment.
“Jerry here yet?” he inquired.
“I haven’t seen him. It’s getting late too.”